SpaceX has a Falcon Heavy which can lift quite some stuff into orbit. Assembling a Mars ship in Earth orbit based on ISS principles should be possible. You then get it to Mars orbit and touch down from orbit in a capsule a bit like those Mars rovers which have become quite heavy.
I know people like long stay Mars missions, but let us be honest, a mission with a short 20-25 day stay on Mars makes more sense for a first mission. You don’t need that much infrastructure on Mars, but you will need a freaking ascent vehicle delivered to Mars first.
Anyway, why is Trump not pushing for a Mars mission in the near term, putting Musk in charge. It would be hugely popular and Musk says it won’t cost more than 20 billion or so.
no no no there can be no space mission to Mars it's mine and I have to get there first so no one else can go there if y'all are gonna help someone get to Mars help me I just need someone who is good with rockets because so far my tests have failed miserably
Caleb Taylor
you can't really rush it since you need to human-rate the launch vehicles, and it is not planned to human rate FH. You could launch some people up on F9 (which will soon be human rated) to something assembled by FHs I suppose, but SpaceX are already working pretty quickly towards the BFR and I don't think they could make the progress much faster, even with a massive government handout specifically for a mission.
Their plan is to fund their Mars missions with Earth to Earth transport and, maybe more realistically, with global space wifi.
James Baker
Lead shielding required to make the radiation safe for humans makes any Mars mission complete fantasy and fraud.
Charles Smith
If Trump is for it the media will be against it and make its popularity lower. Also he's got to make the US stronger and more financially secure before embarking on such a luxury as Martian exploration.
Isaac Butler
a cheap camera, a greenscreen, a guy in a suit who can read from a paper and most importent: some faggots who want to believe it the rest is history
Landon Long
>safe for humans >safe
that's the key word there. What is safe? Less than 5% cancer risk increase? Less than 10%? Of course, the journey does increase cancer risk, but it will not kill you outright. Many people consider this a 'safe' risk to take, many don't. If you don't want to take that risk, don't go I guess.
Austin Fisher
you can't really rush it since you need to human-rate the launch vehicles, and it is not planned to human rate FH. Why would you need to human rate the FH? You assemble the Mars ship in Eart orbit with 10-20s FH. Then you take a normal Dragon on a F9 up there and dock.
>You could launch some people up on F9 (which will soon be human rated) to something assembled by FHs I suppose Yes, that is what I said in my OP
>, but SpaceX are already working pretty quickly towards the BFR and I don't think they could make the progress much faster, even with a massive government handout specifically for a mission. Why do you need an even large rocker if you have a rocket suitable to assemble a Mars spaceship with a cheap rocket like the FH already? Rocket launches are only a small fraction of a mission cost anyway, the spacecraft modules and the ops costs are what is really expensive.
Their plan is to fund their Mars missions with Earth to Earth transport and, maybe more realistically, with global space wifi.
Ayden Myers
Musk is working pretty damn fast. I honestly think he has the best shot.
In order for you to be correct, you need to believe trigonometry is fake, and\or the USSR was actually friends with the US during the Cold War.
Zachary Fisher
There is the possibility to actively shield the crew with an electromagnetic field. Also, for a solar storm while on transit to Mars, you wouldn’t do lead shielding, but water shielding. You need lots of water and propellant. You arrange that so that the crew can slip behind it and then you turn the spacecraft in the direction of the sun and turn up the electromagnetic shield to max.
Oliver Rivera
>Musk is working pretty damn fast. I honestly think he has the best shot.
Trump still needs to back him. NASA should be just doing ops, train the astronauts etc. Let SpaceX build the space craft in Earth orbit and build the Mars descent and ascent vehicles.
Jaxson Martin
Anything you assemble in orbit is going to be really hard to re-use. If you just have one monolithic vehicle, re-use is so much easier, hence why SpaceX is going with BFR. The cost is then reduced to operation costs pretty much, as you will agree is a good thing.
Adam Davis
Humans have no future in space, it will remain the domain of robotics and transhumans. If you want to seriously colonize Mars, focus on investing in robotics.
Justin Johnson
dude that's a waste of money lmao we need to use that money to feed a billion niggers in africa lmao
Luis Foster
simply unification of material assetts and the common goal to do it..
if we setup the "we're going to mars" stock on financial exchange it will also help too. sell memorabillia like "mars soil" for $1,000+ a pint, and so on. "mars rock" $50,000 sculpt into some fine table or mantle piece. or better..
then people will buy into it..
it's not too far away.
we are going to mars in year 20xx
Jaxon Martin
i'd be impressed if they managed to go to the moon first
Wyatt Sullivan
There's no point in going to mars, the Earth has a natural reset button and is livable for millions of years in future. Mars pandering is virtue signaling of the elite to stray the focus of general populace from the core issues on earth.
We need a better space station, and a more reliable method of delivery to it, to mount a mission to mars. It's gonna take a LOT of material, in O2 and food and water alone, for the trip, and lifting it all into orbit in one go would be too expensive and risky. I believe the space station that's planned will address this - it will be key to unlocking moon and mars bases, as a jumping off point, and I think part of the plan is harvesting ice and creating oxygen from it from the moon, to use to go to mars.
Trump has bigger priorities, but he did sign the bill expanding the NASA budget, so far he's not anti-space, but the libs would lose their minds if he tried to fund something like that, even though most scientists think we're way overdue to get started on it. Second term is better for that kind of proposal.
Sebastian Robinson
the money could be used to fix problems here on earth tho. the space meme is a waste of money.
Hudson Nguyen
>mission with a short 20-25 day stay on Mars Aren't time windows for orbit insertion only open for a few days every six months? You'd have to plan a mission that allows for a six months stay and thay gets very heavy very quickly
William Gray
Could someone recommend a good sci-fi novel about going to Mars.
Xavier Ortiz
>Anything you assemble in orbit is going to be really hard to re-use. If you just have one monolithic vehicle, re-use is so much easier
It is the other way around really. A larger assembled Mars ship in orbit using e.g. nuclear-electric propulsion could be used for 20-30yrs to go back and forth from Eath to Mars.
A smaller ship based on a direcf injection to a Mars transfer orbit using something like the BFR would have to be discarded for each mission as the BFR is simply not big enough to lift a 2000 ton Mars ship into a Mars transfer orbit. You’ll need 20 FHs for that to assemble it in orbit...
To become space faring, we need reuseable ships that can enter and leave orbits and just need to be refueled. This means no more chemical in-space propulsion... which also means in orbit assembly ends up not being a problem as nuclear-electric propulsion can take you out and in of orbits.
Luke Brown
>Anything you assemble in orbit is going to be really hard to re-use.
What would we reuse a Mars mission craft for, other than returning to Mars?
It's also a hell of a lot safer to use smaller vehicles to bring personell and supplies up to an orbiting mission craft, and a hell of a lot less fuel/propulsion will be needed for the craft to break orbit and head out, instead of blowing a shit ton of fuel on one craft, with enough fuel and supplies and gear for the mission, up the gravity well.
One huge honking rocket, like the Saturn series, is 60's technology. We're better and smarter than that now. It's also way riskier - we were lucky we never had an accident with a Saturn launch.
Alexander Bell
We go to Mars for the same reason we dive to the bottom of the ocean or explore Antarctica or climb mountains. We are curious people.
Your country is free to feed niggers all it wants, we're talking about a US program.
Blake Flores
You use things that came about from the space program every day, nigger. The "The space program is a waste of money" meme is what ignorant people say.
We could probably fund the entire thing just making Senators and Congressmen pay for their own travel and healthcare.
Mason Campbell
Ben Bova's Mars
Ryan Collins
First landing by Zubrin.
Liam Lewis
>and a hell of a lot less fuel/propulsion will be needed for the craft to break orbit and head out
You are thinking in terms of chemical propulsion with isps of 320. We will never go to Mars with chemical propulsion, I have spent too much time researching this subject to think otherwise. Nuclear-electric propulsion gets us to isps of 4,000 to 10,000+ which means we can concentrate on missioms rather than having to consider 90 percent fuel/propulsion heavy missions with 10 percent payloads... but rather 80 percent payload and 10 percent fuel and 10 percent propulsion.
Mason Howard
>What would it take to get a human Mars mission going? Extremely valuable resources on Mars, worth shuttling back. We already have massive tracts of uninhabitable land here on Earth to 'colonize'. Plus you don't have to worry about generating oxygen.
Nolan Rivera
lol like what? my computer came from space or what? nothing they do even makes a little bit of sense.... its all a big show and the goys love it
circus maximus reloaded
David Sanchez
Besides radiation shielding to get to Mars? Besides enough firepower to punch through the firmament? Besides money? Gonna need jews gone.
Jason Price
I think he means the ballpoint pen.
Anthony Thompson
Fuck mars. Redirecting platinum asteroids to crash into the Pacific is where its at.
Until we can produce flexible radiation shielding and artificial gravity, Mars is a deathtrap. Follow Elon wherever you like, but Mars is not humanity’s next step. A LaGrange colony with water shielding and spin gravity is.
Adam Jones
600 day vs 900 day mission profile plus way more stuff to be delivered to the surface.
What you want is a simple one module habitat landed and in use for 20 days with like 10 Mars surface walks, then you return to the Mars ship in orbit and head back. Cheapest, least risk, most viable.
Justin Lee
Undeniable evidence of the Earth being inside the Firmament my friend! Hallelujah to you! Amen!
John Morales
I'm new to telescopes but >FOCUS
Benjamin Jenkins
Dude, a nuclear electric Mars ship has to be long (reactor away from crew) - 100 - 200m. You just spin the thing to provide 0.1g or 0.2g. Combine that with exercise and you are fine.
Also, a 200MW nuclear reactor provides enough power for really good electromagnetic shielding.
thats actually a genius idea. we need multiple, bigger, better space stations. STRAYLIGHT RUN WHEN?
we also need to get to mining the asteroids belt to build colonies. but without a mars base or at least a outpost on Phobos it isnt going to happen. Mars is going to be our shipyard for colony fleets in 50-100 years. the moon would be a crucial spot for setting up things and processing of elements. most of it could be automated.
Brandon Cook
Mars actually existing
Bentley Mitchell
I wasn't thinking of solid or liquid fuel at all, so you're wrong. Ask before assuming, because then you're just an asshole.
Most Germans I've met weren't this retarded. Shame they have to put up with you.
Adrian Anderson
You were saying fuel was a major constraint for a mission profile. This only applies if you use chemical in-space propulsions.
Logan Garcia
>we need multiple, bigger, better space stations.
Absolutely. The ISS is pretty cool, all things considered, but it's temporary and too small. We should be way further ahead, but we fucked up relying on the shuttle too long, and shutting it's replacement down because of public sentiment on the two shuttle crashes. Which wouldn't have happened if we'd developed more and replaced it sooner.
It's 2018 for fuck's sake. We're better than this. There's a massive bonanza waiting for us out in space, in all fields of research and science.
Parker Scott
I’m not talking about the trip there and back... I’m talking about a permanent settlement. Note that I mentioned a colony in my post? And that I fucking mentioned spin gravity? Jesus, are you fucking stupid or did you just see that my post was anti-Musk and just started firing your spaghetti without reading the rest?
Liam Nguyen
I don't have time to nitpick, waste someone else's time neckbearding.
Ryan Jenkins
>Nuclear-electric propulsion gets us to isps of 4,000 to 10,000+ Does this even exist? I know we have ion drives for small satellites.
Andrew Ward
Can idiots please leave the thread. Thanks.
Brody Diaz
Yes. The problem e.g. for Hall thrusters is scalling them up to higher power throughput. They tested 100kW, but you need 200-500MW going through that...
Hall thrusters are able to accelerate their exhaust to speeds between 10 and 80 km/s (1,000–8,000 s specific impulse), with most models operating between 15 and 30 km/s (1,500–3,000 s specific impulse).
The thrust produced by a Hall thruster varies depending on the power level. Devices operating at 1.35 kW produce about 83 mN of thrust. High-power models have demonstrated up to 5.4 N in the laboratory.[2] Power levels up to 100 kW have been demonstrated by xenon Hall thrusters.
Electromagnetic is more likely to work for larger propulsion tech
This sounds promising, but it's still early prototyping. Is it realistic to imagine a Mars mission using this tech within the next 10 years?
Isaac Peterson
exactly, economy of scale. that way we wont have to one off bespoke build shit. why have one or two, when we can have 50 or 100 space stations in case shit happens and a extra orbital ship needs to roll in with wounded or has has some depressurization happen.
once we get enough asteroids in moon orbit, and use some ingenuity, we could concievably fuse all the external surfaces, make it airtight, and start making big as fuck transports of raw materials and giant greehouses for food. we should take a page from Trumps book, and do it all bigger, better and more. if we only need 500 of something to keep x amount of people alive in space, and we can do 50,000 for 5 times as much work, we should always got for the more. you never know when shit will go sour on you.
throw enough money at anything and you can have it done in a month. with all the money the Clinton's embezzled from the govt in slick willy and that evil bitch as sec of state, we could have had this done, and we could have been shitposting from Andromeda.
Ryder Bailey
Humans still cannot pass the van Allen belt. Figure that out first
Colton Taylor
>s it realistic to imagine a Mars mission using this tech within the next 10 years?
Yes. The principle works for large powrr throughput. In the 60s and 70s, most concepts called for nuclear propulsion. These were serious Mars mission plans and the propulsion technique wasn’t considered the bottleneck - most problems were for the descent to Mars and the ascent. Those things really killed the mission profiles then.
Starting in the 90s, all mission profiles have been pretty much killed by conservative tech proposals principally using chemical propulsion. It is just way too expensive.
Kayden Davis
Mars 2035 is already underway, in the USA. It has been for about a decade, but it picked up in 2015.
A 20-25 day-stay is not what's planned. The current plan is to begin by sending modular station buildings that can be robotically assembled. You land those and get the station up remotely, before any human beings approach. Once testing is complete, then you send the resources the stations require. Then you send the people, with a plan to keep the station in-use indefinitely, or at least leave it in a state ready for future use. A 20-25 day, one off trip, considering the resources required, would be ridiculous.
Matthew Davis
If you look at the NASA budget, there is no serious money put towards human Mars exploration. Most of the money is wasted to keep thousands of workers employed for a big government rocket based on the Shuttel external tanks... a rocket which is not going to be used but maybe 2-3 times until 2030.
There are a lot of steps between now and Mars. It's not "Ok, in 2020 we put billions into 'Mars.'" It's: in 2019 we start by figuring out how to build sustainable, resusable bases on the moon.
Ryan Ramirez
sorry most germans are just a dumb as you are
nothing on that list requires space... think about it
atheists are so ignorant :/
Nathaniel Rogers
Which lime item of the budget are you refering to?
SLS and Orion have really nothing to do with an actual Mars mission, those are kept around for political purposes but won’t ever be used for an actual mission beyond LEO.
>Anyway, why is Trump not pushing for a Mars mission in the near term, putting Musk in charge. >putting Musk in charge. Why? Musk is a cool guy but rocket tech is literally stone age compared to all the shit the US has hidden away in caves.
Hunter Williams
Secret military industrial complex black projects are flying around black triangle ships with astral warp drive, yet you delusional retards talk about chemical rockets or nuclear propulsion.
Gavin King
This is why Islam is a death sentence. We must always strive to the Infinite.
Anthony Carter
Political will. Literally. Bob Zubrin has proven back in 1996 that a Mars mission can be done using chemical propulsion and a shuttle-derived launcher (i.e. AresV/SLS). No new tech is needed (VASIMR etc.)
Shielding is an artificial problem. The radiation rates received by the Mars crew are not dangerous, but lead to increased cancer risk, which makes the mission ILLEGAL under the present regulations. Still, that is something which can be waived pretty easily by either Congress or POTUS.
> nuclear propulsion
NERVA worked, then the project was (((shut down))) in dubious circumstances along with Saturn V. Saturn V + NERVA upperstage = Mars rocket
Ryder Walker
Colonize and industrially develop the Moon first as a staging platform.
Collect solar energy on the Moon and transmit the energy to Earth.
???
Profit
Ryan Mitchell
>The radiation rates received by the Mars crew are not dangerous, but lead to increased cancer risk
>not dangerous >leads to cancer Pick one
Cooper Peterson
>increased cancer risk
Sir, working as a pilot increases your cancer risk. Doesn’t mean there aren’t any pilots.
